Why do we blow the candles on our birthday cakes?

Day 162 / 365

We are living in the information age, and it’s truly baffling how much stuff we know of right now. That’s why I find it even more surprising when I get to know about the stuff that we don’t know.

For instance, I read a post today about how blowing the candles on a birthday cake would increase the number of germs on it by 1400%. Fascinating, I agree. But the question that came to my mind straightaway was, why do we do this candle blowing tradition anyway? Moreover, why do we even put candles on our cakes? If you think about it, it seems like a weird thing to do. I needed answers, so I went to the place everyone goes when they have a question, Google!

And I was disappointed. Apparently, we don’t have any clue about the origin of this ritual. We have a few theories, but none can be established as correct.

Cakes with candles on them can be traced back to ancient Greece. There they used cakes in a monthly ritual to honor the goddess of the moon. The circular cake was supposed to represent the moon. The candles on the cake were added to represent the moonlight.

Flash forward a couple of 1000 years and somehow we now have these cakes on our birthdays, and we blow the candles on them while making a secret wish that we are now allowed to tell anyone or it won’t come true. We really are a weird species.

This post is part of my 365 Day Project for 2019. Read about it here

Yesterday’s blog — Panda Diplomacy